Saturday, March 24, 2007

A long road

The last month has been a loooong road for us. My younger daughter began coughing roughly 6 weeks ago (I've actually lost count but it was at least 6 weeks ago!)and she has coughed....and coughed....and coughed.

She started out with what we thought was croup - which she does get periodically. We tried all the usual things, her nebuliser, steam treatments etc, cough suppressant, but nothing helped. She then made the first of many trips to the doctor and ended up on cortisone and various other medications - still nothing helped. The strange thing was that the cough would be much better during the day, but the minute the sun disappeared she would begin this dreadful, barking, cough, which would continue until well after midnight. Frequently she would be coughing, gasping for air, coughing, non-stop. This meant that she missed a lot of school and was exhausted when she was there - not to mention the strain on the entire family.

In the past few weeks, she has had her peak flow checked, had chest x-rays and been tested for T.B. The x-rays indicated possible asthma, so we were prescribed an inhaler...and still she coughed. Our doctor finally referred us to a pulmologist, who we saw on Tuesday and he diagnosed Cough Variant Asthma. He prescribed a new inhaler as well as a nasal spray (she also has severe allergic rhinitis) and it seems to have WORKED!! At last, last night we had a decent nights sleep! I think it is going to take a couple of days for us all to feel completely ourselves again - but here's hoping we are on the road to normality.